See how the Oglala Sioux Tribe is helping bison make a comeback in the Badlands

The Oglala Sioux Tribe is making history in the northwest corner of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The tribe, part of the Oglala Lakota Nation, is working with the National Park Service to create the first tribal national park within the National Park System. The management of the new park will respect the traditional beliefs and practices of the land’s ancestral owners. It will be located on a wild stretch of 133,000 acres on the reservation, an area currently within Badlands National Park that the tribe has managed jointly with the Park Service for decades. A key part of the park’s management plan is the restoration of some 1,000 bison to the land. Also known as buffalo, or tatanka in Lakota, the bison will be one of the largest single herds in the country. These bison will more than double the number of these culturally important animals that the tribe st...